HYDE CHESHIRE

Harry Rutherford's Festival of Britain Mural

Friday, 19 October 2012

Martins Bank, Hyde

Martins Bank Limited was a Liverpool-based British financial services company that was taken over by Barclays Bank in 1969. The company has its origins in the 16th century and was said to have been founded by Sir Thomas Gresham , who began trading in Lombard Street under the sign of a grasshopper. After the Second World War it was the first bank to enter into partnership with a major retailer, opening banking concessions inside branches of the Lewis's department store chain.

The bank was bought by Barclays Bank
in 1969, when all of its seven hundred branches became branches of
Barclays. Around 30 branches closed immediately, and ten were downgraded
to sub-branches. Some, such as the sub-branch at Eaton, Norwich,
Norfolk were brand new and handed over to Barclays on the day appointed
by Act of Parliament for the merger of the two banks, 15 December 1969.
The Martins grasshopper logo was retained for part of the combined
business until the early 1980s, with "Martins Branch" and a small
grasshopper appearing first on both statements and cheque books, later
cheques only (see the Martins Bank Archive Project link below). Martins
numbered among its customers a football pools company, a major airline
and a world renowned shipping line. When these customers wanted to
borrow large sums, Martins was known to have borrowed from other banks
on a number of occasions to fulfil these requests. Even so, many who
worked for the bank believed that Martins could have survived on its
own, as at the time of takeover it was expanding its UK banking
operation, and continuing a run of "firsts" which included:

First in the north of England with a cash machine in 1967

First with mobile banks to provide banking to remote areas

First with a drive-through bank in Leicester in 1959 and Epsom in 1966

First and only English bank to have a head office outside London

First to recognise and embrace the swinging 60s in its advertising

First to experiment with and then use a computer to operate current-account business

First with a branch on the centre court at Wimbledon

Women were contractually obliged to leave the bank upon marriage, and
as late as 1965, men were not allowed to get married until their salary
reached a prescribed level. Many of Martins' forms, and some
procedures, were retained or later adopted by Barclays as being more
advanced than their own.

14 comments:

Werneth Low
said...

My father had his business account at Martins Bank in Market Street but I seem to remember that originally a much smaller branch stood on the opposite side of the street. Does anyone else remember this, or is it possible to check in a Kelly's Directory of the 50s? Could be my ageing memory up to its tricks again!!

I have a photo of the old bus station which shows Barclays Bank in the block where Shipman's surgery was. The sign is at the top of the building facing the bus station. I'm presuming that this was taken while the present Barclays building was still Martins. I have no recollection of the Halifax but that doesn't mean it wasn't there!

Fascinating piece of industrial history - I love these stories of the institutions that so shaped peoples' lives. The loss of these big old regional businesses has had an enormous impact on the country.

Martin's Bank address was 36-38 Market Street from around 1925 to around 1976, the site was previously occupied by the Lancashire & Yorkshire Bank from around 1914.The Halifax B.S were at 19 Market St, and Barclay's next door at No 17 in 1976

Barclay's was at the bottom of the row, next to the Bus Station exit, THEN it was Halifax, the next one up.

Also, the photo of Martin's Bank has brought back to me something my mother told me when I was a child.I'm not sure if it's correct but she told me, the reason a lot of banks are on corners is that they are harder to rob (!?)

I really love this site, it fascinates me a lot. I'm only 22 and love looking at the old pics and learning more about old hyde and peoples memories of hyde. My mum, grandad and grandma are from hyde. They used to live on jackson street, then tom shepley street. It brings back a lot of memories for me as I remember when I was younger, every saturday me, my mum and 2 brothers would go down hyde, call in the old market hall where Home Bargains is. We would then go to Martins Shop, also knows as "Kiosk", near the old bus station, and then go to our grandmas for the day. Oh, what memories! :)

Search This Blog

Search This Blog

TEAM HYDONIAN

Visitors From --- (01/10/10)

We have now been viewed in 168 Countries by over 975,238 unique visitors.... great team work... and fantastic support by so many of you.
Thank You

A place of interest for Hydonians.

If you have any pictures, stories, memories, or items from or about Hyde and you would like to share them here with other like minded Hydonians please get in touch with us. Either leave us a comment or even better email us:

Tom, Dave, Paul and I would like to say thank you to everyone for contributing to this blog in some small way - even if that means just reading it! It's been more of a success than we could ever have dreamt of and that's all down to you ! It was our intention to get Hyde "on the record" as it were and it seems to be heading in the right direction. We are very proud of Hyde and would like it's history to live on!